Fintech Inteviews: Spriggy

mitchellake on September 28, 2017

In my final FinTech CEO interview, I sat down with Mario Hasanakos, co-CEO of Spriggy. Spriggy has been a true FinTech, startup success story, joining the first H2 accelerator back in 2015, and recently raising their Seed round of $2.5 million. Their much loved product educates young people on how to manage money with a prepaid Visa card linked to app that parents and kids use together.

 

I sat down with Mario to get his full cradle to Seed round story, and some insight into this experience.

 

Matthew Parker (MP): Firstly, congratulations on your raise! You must be delighted. Tell me about that experience, how you chose your investors and how much to raise?

 

Mario Hasanakos (MH): Well it all really started to heat up in the month or so before we announced the close. These things are always a long burn, the people who you’re most happy to raise capital from are people you’ve known for a while. Our largest investor was Alium Capital and Perle Ventures, as well as a number of angels who were HNW strategic investors. At the moment we’re not disclosing all their names at their request, but we’ve known them for a while.

 

When choosing the investors, we told people what we were doing and our vision for the business and saw two quite distinct camps. One group that really bought into our long term vision and really wanted to build this with us. The other group saw the business as it is today and how to scale the business in order to exit in the next few years. We’ve always been a business that is growing towards that bigger vision, so one of the prerequisites was sharing that larger, broader opportunity versus the “get in and get out” approach.

 

We turned down a few people as well, that’s never easy, and that sort of statement is an honour and a privilege. We could have raised more capital and there was more interest than we had in mind to raise, so at some point you have to make some hard decisions on who’s in and who’s out, but you never burn a bridge.

 

In respect to how much money we raised, we looked at what we think we can execute in the next 12 months, then looked back at how much that’s going to cost. We wouldn’t raise money that we didn’t know exactly how to spend – so not raising money for the sake of raising money. Once you set the amount, that impacts the number of people that you raise from and the amount you raise from each of them. Some people celebrate raising capital as an achievement, but really it’s that you’ve made a really serious obligation to people to share this journey with you. Ideally, we don’t want to share that obligation with more people than we have to, so I think the premise is to have a tight group of investors that we are close to, who are excited about being on the journey with us.

 

MP: It’s been quite the journey since joining the first round of H2 Accelerator, tell me a bit about your journey…

 

MH: So when my co-founder Alex and I came together to start Spriggy, it was called Rivva and our whole vision was to build a bank that helped people be happier about money. We both came from investment banking backgrounds, and for lack of a better description, we were profiting from the illiteracy of our customers for the benefit of the institution we worked for and that didn’t align with what we wanted to do with our lives. At the same time there was also a mainstream recognition of technology being used to give users better outcomes. There was no one doing that in finance, so we asked ourselves why not? The one thing everyone was using was a transaction bank account, so why can’t we use that thought process with a transactional bank account?

 

Financial issues are the number one source of stress for Australians. If you can build financial products that improve the financial literacy you can really have an impact on people’s lives, and that’s the whole reason we started building this business.

 

When we pitched to H2, we were originally pitching a data-oriented banking product for millennials. We learned very quickly that in order to change people’s behaviours you have to start a lot younger, that people’s behaviors are largely baked in by the time their 25 years old. We also learned how difficult it is to build a bank in Australia – it hadn’t been done by a technology start-up before. At the same time we realised that we could have a bigger impact at a younger age with the audience of parents and the education of children as our entry point helping people manage their money.

 

MP: Even becoming a full service bank in the future?

 

MH: Potentially… We’ve always used the thought process of build what the customer wants, then figure out the rest on the backend. Customers don’t care about our regulation, they care about solving their problems.

 

MP: So through this process, what were your biggest learnings?

 

MH: Number one – how important it is to listen to your customer. When we first left banking it was really an eye opener that we could talk to a customer and build something for them as opposed to selling something we already had. This was really built into us in the H2 programme, we had to be obsessed with the customer and make a really fantastic customer feedback loop. Then the further we’ve gotten in, we’ve seen the importance of the team, it’s really hard to build a team from scratch. The reality is if you don’t have a brilliant team, it makes a difficult job even more so.

 

MP: Were there any times you thought of walking away?

 

MH: Well we were fortunate enough to have tremendous support the whole way, so we’ve never really been at the point where we were going to turn the lights off. But ultimately, it always felt like we were on to something, so it’s never seriously crossed our minds to walk away.

 

MP: What have been some of your biggest mistakes you feel you’ve made? If you were to do things over what would you change?

 

MH: We would probably have been a little bit less ambitious with how we were prototyping. We were so enthusiastic to build as fast as possible, we bit off more than we could chew at some points. So we would have probably built something more modest, get customers using something smaller, getting feedback, then iterating. The reality is what we have done hasn’t been done by anyone else in Australia, and it showed, it took us 18 months to get the product to market.

 

MP: What was it like going through the necessary regulations to get Spriggy to market?

 

MH: You have a lot of conversations; with potential service providers, regulators, people who have done similar things before. You have this overwhelming urgency to get something done, which enables you to be creative and try things established institutions wouldn’t ordinarily try. When we were trying to find a prepaid card provider for us to white-label, it was tough to find a provider that had the right technology, that was willing to support a start-up, and didn’t have a massive upfront fee. We were told “No” a lot. Now we get approached all the time. But we did a number of firsts with Indue around the pricing and technology model and big praise must go to them. But ultimately if you don’t have the right incentives – give up or bust – you don’t push yourself as hard.

 

MP: Talk me through your first hire, how did you decide that was the person you needed?

 

MH: Our first hire was Rob – he’s been really successful. He’s our lead payments engineer, he works on all things backend for our server. It was an easy decision, the subsequent decisions have been harder.

 

We’d built a simple prototype for testing purposes, and then we needed to build a commercial version of our product, which is no less than the the back-end of a full service bank. It was clear that we needed someone with the experience to do that, but also someone who knew that they could build it on a shoestring budget, rock solid, and adaptable. That requires a brilliant engineer and also a brilliant business person. We were both in Stone and Chalk and he was working with EasyShare and close to finishing up there. Alex had been working with him quite closely, and Rob was always so happy to help, so when he was leaving EasyShare it was an easy decision. We certainly wouldn’t be here without him or without our second hire, our App Lead Jeff.

 

Subsequent hires were harder. At that time, we wouldn’t have gone to market if we hadn’t delivered a working product. Once you get a bit bigger you realise there’s choices on where to invest resources and you have to make calculated decisions on where to put resources. But when you’re getting started and sprinting to get a product out there, it’s super obvious what you need and the only challenge you have left is finding the rockstars who can do the impossible. We were incredibly lucky to find Rob & Jeff and simply couldn’t have done it without them.

 

MP: So where is Spriggy now, and what’s next?

 

MH: We launched in November, the growth has been 30% MoM, approximately 40,000 registered users, and we want to keep growing with what we think and our users think is a tremendous help for parents to teach their kids about money. So at the moment we’re trying to spread the word about Spriggy.

 

We also took a long time getting here in building a proper payments product, so we’ve had to sit tight on the education functionality we have always had planned for the product We’re trying our hardest to solve the problems that parents have teaching their kids about money.

 

MP: What are some of the biggest challenges you see on the horizon?

 

MH: Given what we do is so new (the parents who use our products love it, referrals is big for us) there’s an education challenge for the market. We’re always working on creative ways to tell people what Spriggy does, in a world where increasingly digital payments system can be scary to people. So finding a way to show people how Spriggy can help in their family’s life is a continual challenge.

 

Then continuing to improve and adapt the business model, scaling with the business partners. The speed at which we’re growing has never been done by an Australian bank before so we have to be really creative with how we scale this platform. 40,000 customers is very different 400,000 so it’s a long way to go.

 

MP: What advice would you give to the current cohort in H2, or individuals starting their own business?

 

MH: Number one – always focus on your customer, but i’m sure the H2 crowd tell them that daily.

 

The second thing I would say is don’t ever lose the optimism of why you started this in the first place. People will tell you why you’re wrong and doomed for failure, but we live in an amazing time where almost anyone can build a temple of technology. The only reason you’re ever guaranteed to fail is if you give up. So if you keep focused on the reason is why you started, and just keep going every day, you can make something amazing.

 

MP: What were some of the best pieces of advice you received while you were building Spriggy?

 

MH: It was quite literally focus on your customer, it’s a bit cliched but that is the truth.

 

The other great advice was “Start now”. There are certain people in the world who were always going to be entrepreneurs, but I worked for a bank for 7 years and I could go back and do fine in that environment, so it’s always going to be hard for people like me to leave and start something else. But it’s so much better on the other side. My life is so much more fulfilling than it ever used to be. Toby Heap, when I first ever met him said “just go, just take the leap, everything else is just noise.”

 

That concludes our fantastic series of interviews with FinTech CEOs. We’ve heard from some of the leading lights in FinTech in Australia and can’t wait to see how they grow in the coming years.

 

Wifi on Aeroplanes – a Trip to the Future, or a Future of Added Anxiety?

mitchellake on September 18, 2017

When I initially heard that some aeroplanes were introducing wifi to selected flights, my immediate thought was – why? What is so important whilst in transit that it can’t wait till landing? Is this removing the modern worlds final place of total freedom from hashtags and likes?

Admittedly, on a recent Emirates flight to the UK I got lured in fifteen minutes prior to my first layover by two-hours of free wifi. I was curious as to what all the fuss was about and *it was* handy arranging my airport pick up ahead of time. However, was it really necessary? There are two primary methods to enable a passenger Internet connection on an airplane; if you want to know what these are, you’ve come to the wrong article.

I’m a huge advocate for new technologies that simplify and improve our lives; and there *are some* pros to having wifi access on planes. If it is a business trip, it could reduce time wasted travelling and increase productivity. However fellow opposers argue that it could actually inhibit productivity with the added distraction of people making phone calls, and unlike being on the underground, you can’t move seats when you’re on a plane.

Year by year we use our screens considerably more – we order food from them; handle our banking; we even use them to work out. These are all arguably very useful additions to our app-store; however there has been a lot of persuasive research lately about the effects of smartphones on mental health – anxiety, depression and disturbed sleep are a few of the many linked side effects. I will chat through some of these in the paragraphs to follow.

Like a smoker going cold-turkey, the vast majority of smartphone owners experience anxiety and distress when they are without their device. This is added stress on top of the day-to-day stress of normal life, and is not something we need if you ask me. As Hooked author Nir Eyel powerfully stated, “we use our booze and our tech for the same reason – an escape from restless reality.” And this is coming from a guy who wrote a guideline book to teach technology people how to build habit-forming products.

The strong and significant association between social media use and depression is also widely recognised and tested. A US-based study found that levels of depression increased with total amount of time spent using social media and number of visits to social media sites per week. Although some other studies have produced mixed findings, it is easy to see why the constant use of “likes” could cause people to continually seek validation from others to bolster their self esteem; or why scrolling through other people’s holiday snaps could make a relaxed weekend at home feel slightly less appealing.

What else is really worrying is that, according to a study published in September 2015, the amount of caffeine in a double espresso has less of an effect on sleep quality than bright light exposure from smart-phones at night! My boss recently bought an old-school alarm clock, and leaves his phone in the living room before bed at night for this precise reason.

In summary, although there are some obvious benefits to having wifi access on aeroplanes for business use; surely on the whole it is more beneficial to protect the last remaining refuge we have free from constant mobile interaction. I can think of a few more useful ways we could be spending our aeroplane time – sleeping, meditating, journaling; or whatever happened to getting stuck into a good book?

*Do you see air travel as a safe haven from screen-time, or are you counting down the days until airplane mode is a thing of the past?*

If you want to hear more about anything technology, design, psychology or recruitment related; or if you’d like to chat about hiring awesome talent for your business (no matter where you are in the country) feel free to get in touch – lara.morgan@mitchellake.com.

FinTech Interviews: Proviso

mitchellake on September 14, 2017

Last week I sat down with Luke Howes, serial entrepreneur and notably, CEO of Proviso. Proviso is now a staple of the FinTech ecosystem in Australia; from a consumer perspective perhaps one of those businesses you’ve not heard of but had a massive impact on your life, and from a client perspective, one of the most important tools for accessing customer data to improve the quality and speed of lending. Either way, Proviso has an awesome impact on Financial Services business across Australia. But that’s enough from me, let’s hear what Luke has to say about building this Adelaide-based FinTech business.

Matthew Parker (MP): Why did you feel it was necessary to start Proviso, what were some of the key challenges you were trying to solve?

Luke Howes (LH): If we go back to the start, we already had a financial comparison website, but wanted to get more involved with users with our own product. We were looking at building a budgeting app and showed it to some lenders. They thought it was interesting but felt that their biggest problem was getting bank statements to improve the automation of lending, so we saw this as a potential opportunity. We didn’t do anything with this immediately, but it kept coming up over a couple of months, so we built an MVP and managed to acquire some good clients and it’s been growing from there!

That second MVP initially had data retrieval from 10 banks in Australia which lenders found really valuable. It took us a few months to onboard our first clients, but the feedback from lenders was really positive about what we were doing. Additionally, regulatory changes that meant this was the perfect time. Our initial clients were online lenders and non-bank business lenders. We also started working with Mortgage brokers, and in the past year we have now signed up some credit unions and banks. We also provide bank data for a range of fintech applications in accounting and all the new wonderful ideas people are dreaming up nowadays.

MP: What do you feel have been some of Proviso’s biggest successes?

LH: We’ve been running the business for 3.5 years. I feel we’ve really made a great difference for Financial Services in Australia. We now have over 900 clients and it feels like we influence a lot of business and impact a lot of people in making financial services easier to deal with. When we started out, we had 2 core beliefs; make processes frictionless and customer experience wins. This has really played out over the past few years.

To quote Chris Hadfield, we’ve also been “lucky” – the timing has been great, when we went out early with our MVP, asking questions of what lenders needed, we were lucky to get great feedback. Regulatory changes to responsible lending have been a significant help as well.

The product we built has competitive advantages in speed that we didn’t realise in advance that would be so important. We’re the fastest to get the data in the market and it’s made a massive difference. We built all our own technology which has become a defining competitive advantage in terms of speed, quality and flexibility.

We’ve also been persistent and patient at the times when it has been required. For example, we’re on-boarding a big lender this week which was the second demo we ever did almost 4 years ago. Start-up technology companies are not all overnight successes. These things take time – you have to have patience, you have to have a long view with everything, relationships with employees, customers, everything. This all pays off in the end.

MP: At the “Finnies” this year you took home three awards, why do you think Proviso was recognised and what has that done to support the growth of your business?

LH: We probably didn’t have too many companies competing which helps! We have good sentiment from our customers, we were really grateful to win the awards, but also really conscious of our internal shortcomings and knowing where we need to get better. It’s great recognition of course, that we’re on the right track for our customers and clients, but also no business is perfect, and we know there’s more to be done. But I think people like working with us and we like working with our clients. We try and be really good people in everything we do, and this builds goodwill and trust in the market.

Looking forward, we’re planning to double the size of our business in the next 12 months from a revenue perspective. We are self-funded and haven’t taken on any external investment capital. We manage profitability and stability and grow our team to fill the needs that we have. I don’t know what the headcount is going to look like in 12 months, but in the past 6 months we’ve doubled the size of the team to 15. We will continue to grow our team as we add more clients.

From a product perspective we’re always looking at features and data points that improve the customer experience and help our clients become more efficient and profitable.

MP: At the start of the year I spoke with Jost Stollmen in our 2016 Fintech Retrospective who mentioned the growing pressure on banks to open up their data and APIs in order to create a flourishing FinTech sector in Australia. How do you feel this has evolved over the year and what still needs to happen?

LH: The conversation has progressed immensely. The Federal Government has started the open data enquiry and seems very interested in fast forwarding the progress on this – the progress definitely hasn’t been coming from the banks.

Moving forward, there needs to be a mindset shift from the banks from seeing open data as a threat to an opportunity. We’ve seen some examples out of the UK and Europe on how open data has been leveraged to create better products for the banks who can then provide them to their customers. Currently they see it as a threat giving up data and not the opportunity to improve experience for the customer with an ecosystem of Fintech companies making amazing and innovative products.

We are strong believers that customers should be able to control their data and who has access to their data, especially banking data. We provide a customer authorized service where they control and direct who receives their banking data. There are a lot of unknowns for open banking data, but it will progress step-by-step. We likely overestimate progress in the short term, but also underestimate the transformation of financial services in the long term as banking APIs start to open up. This will create a lot of new opportunities.

My hope is that Australian consumers become more financially literate and gain access to more financial products that are competitively priced. Hopefully there will be more financial services available to people who are currently financially excluded. As a country if we can address those objectives open data will contribute to growth of society as a whole.

MP: Changing tact a bit; why did you decide to set up Proviso in Adelaide? How have you found growing a business out of Adelaide?

LH: I grew up in Adelaide but had been living in Sydney for about ten years. The co-founder of Proviso is Dallin my brother who heads up the tech team and he has always lived in Adelaide. We initially started the business with me based in Sydney and Dallin based in Adelaide. I made a family decision to move back to Adelaide at the beginning of 2015 and have seen many benefits of being in one office. I’ve also been surprised how good it’s been to grow the business here in Adelaide. It’s a great place to find talent and it’s certainly more affordable for talent compared with Sydney.

The downside is probably the travel as most of our clients are interstate, so we are on planes most weeks. But on a normal day it only takes 10 minutes to get to work and it’s a great lifestyle for family which meshes well with entrepreneurship.

The other interesting thing is that in Sydney we would be a small fish in a big pond, but here we are more of a big fish in a small pond. We’ve received a small grant from the state government and had some great visibility.

MP: Final question; you’ve set up a few different businesses, what have been some of your key learnings?

LH: Sometimes I look back and wonder if I could have fast tracked this business or the development of certain things but looking back of 12 years of running my own companies, each have been a massive learning process. It’s all been part of the experience and education of being an entrepreneur and every mistake has fed into the learning for the next business. Failing isn’t terminal it’s just part of the process. It’s helped me develop resilience for when things haven’t been going well.

A lesson that’s been difficult for me to learn is that I can’t do it all myself. It’s been great to build a fantastic team with Proviso.

I used to have a view that having employees would add complexity and difficulty but building this team has been an amazing experience.

Another key learning has been the power of focus. There are so many opportunities and over many years of building businesses I tried to take advantage of many of them but realised that doing many things poorly was not going to lead to anything substantial. So, with Proviso from day one we have had a razor-sharp focus, really trying hard to eliminate all the noise.

Finally, you have to ship product and get it in the market so you can get the feedback and make it better rather than sitting on the sideline and guessing or projecting how the product is going to grow. You have to build; you have to ship and then learn from those experiences. We have definitely tried to do that. It’s the basics of the Lean start-up, get it out early, get feedback and charge for it!

If you’d like to learn more about Proviso, check out their website here. Stay tuned for my upcoming interview with Mario Hasanakos from Spriggy, talking about his cradle to Series A experience.

If you’d like to chat about hiring awesome talent for your business, no matter where you are in the country (even Adelaide, sounds like we should all start our businesses there), please email us at

sydney@mitchellake.com

Are retailers fearful of Amazon’s Australia launch?

mitchellake on September 8, 2017

In case you have been living under a rock for the past 20-odd years, you will be well-aware of the ecommerce giant Amazon. In fact, it is the largest online retailer by market share and sales in the world.

The question is, are Australian retailers fearful for the impending launch of Amazon in Australia; and if not, why not? They very well should be.

Perhaps I am more concerned than others, growing up in the UK, where if you couldn’t get it from Amazon; it pretty much didn’t exist. Amazon have been using clever tactics to get users on board ever since they announced their Aussie launch in 2016. I’ve already signed up and am receiving email updates; I only wanted to buy an Audio book.

There are of course question-marks around what the launch will look like in reality. Luckily for some it has been pushed back almost a year until late 2018, instead of the original date of September this year. Will they undercut the main electrical goods retailers? How will the logistics work? Will deliveries be shorter? Will they pay all of the Australian taxes? One thing is for sure, this isn’t going to be a hasty move; and no doubt they’ll put their best foot forward for all of the above.

Those who are actually concerned about the launch, which was revealed to be only 14% of retailers in a survey conducted by Commonwealth Bank; what are they doing to retain their customers?

I recently had a chat with the Head of Marketing for one of the leading Australian electronics giants, and their tactic is all about retention. Unable to undercut Amazon on all product prices or compete with their technical expertise, keeping loyal customers happy is their chosen lifeline. This can be achieved through loyalty discounts, free delivery offers and exclusive deals for returning customers. Take note from startups like Rewardle who are killing it in the customer loyalty space. This I suspect will be a successful method, at least for a while.

When push comes to shove, all customers really want is their chosen product, at the right price, in their hands as soon as humanly possible, right? As such it is a no-brainer that cutting delivery costs could and should be an option for vulnerable retailers. However, it might be worth noting that last year Amazon charged its customers USD $4bn for deliveries that cost them USD $8bn. With that in mind, retailers should be prepared to invest. Myer and David Jones see this as their biggest challenge to profitability.

Like Australian organisations across the board, retailers too are beginning to realise the value in investing in CX (Customer Experience). New and innovative digital products, for example Apple’s new iBeacon app, gives shoppers personalised messages while they’re in store, as well as micro location services. For me, technological advancements to the customers in-store experience is one method that bricks-and-mortar retailers can use to compete with overwhelmingly powerful pure-play retailers like Amazon. 94% of sales in Australia are in store as opposed to online (compared to 72% in the UK) – therefore there must be something to be said about improving in-store customer service and switching the mindset to improving the customer journey in its entirety (store; email; online; returns, etc).

There is always a silver lining. Amazon is one of the largest employers in the United States; which means thousands more jobs for Australians are set to come out of the launch. Interestingly, digital marketing agencies are predicted to benefit from the ecommerce-giant’s’ presence in the Southern Hemisphere thanks to a goldmine of opportunities for internet marketing. Although the situation look does appear bleak for some retailers, experts don’t think there will be much to be seen in the first five years (which means ample time to get fearful).

FinTech Interviews: Entersoft Security

mitchellake on August 29, 2017

In my latest interview, we take a change of direction, talking to one of the leading service providers for the FinTech industry – Entersoft Security. I spent an hour with the CEO, Mohan Gandhi last week to discuss Cyber Security, white-hat-hacking and how to hire in one of the most technical areas of Development.

Matthew Parker (MP): So why did you start Entersoft, why did you feel it was necessary and what is your differentiator?

Mohan Gandhi (MG): We started with a simple objective to be a cyber security company, providing security for anything digital that needs protection. But more than that, we wanted to build a cyber security company that hackers can come and do actual hacking for the greater good. We had observed that working in security for corporates and governments that sometimes hackers can get stuck not using their skills and end up fading away. So, we created an environment where they can really reach their full potential and keep hacking! But we have moved so far beyond that, so now we work as white-hat hackers – you tell us about the most important parts of your business, the core competencies, and then we hack into those to test their strengths. You pay us only when we are able to break through and hack into your application. This formed the base for Entersoft.

While we were doing this, we had seen the applications and the websites were generally the core competencies and their business would go down if the website went down. The data is also one of the things they want to protect and often these are stored in the apps. Naturally, app security became a big focus for us. Typically, people use a lot of audit tools and scanners, but the biggest problem is that most businesses don’t have the capabilities to fix the bugs, or it takes a long time. Ultimately, it comes down to the DevOps competency of the businesses. So, we started to help people fix those bugs and fix them fast. We don’t just stop at audits and scans; and go end-to-end with app security.

Ultimately, we want to make clients self-sufficient when it comes to dev-ops and security. Over the past 3 or 4 years we have served over 300 customers, and we are currently working with 87 businesses. Around 60% of them are start-ups, and the 40% would be enterprises and banks.

MP: Why did you pick FinTech and Internet of Things (IoT) as target verticals?

MG: For us it was pretty clear the growth of these sectors combined with the complexity of the security and the impact when it goes wrong. FinTech has been targeted for a long time as companies are holding money and there could be a valuable reward for hackers. FinTechs represent a really big challenge for hackers as they are built on things like blockchain and are very secure, and the returns are very high, but also the impact on the ecosystem is very high. Businesses can close down if there is a security breach which could have a big snowball.

We also love working with businesses that are forward thinking and innovative and are open to our approach and ideas. We can work really closely with them to embed security into their business which is more interesting than hacking and auditing security for a bank.

IoT has been targeted a lot by hackers, and security is a massive component as one part that is down can affect everything. You are thinking on a gateway and cloud level and everything is connected. You have to consider IoT security in many different angles. These are two of the most challenging verticals and have both been big targets to hackers for a very long time.

MP: What do you think are some of the biggest challenges for Fintech businesses in regard to security?

MG: We have worked with more than 40 FinTechs now, and the biggest challenge most of them face is scaling up. Typically, there are only a handful of developers or product people in the business, and they are thinking of the cost of security whilst trying to drive down spending. But the biggest gap is that it’s difficult to scale up engineering. You don’t have a proper dev-ops process or security when you set up the company, which has a big negative impact on their growth as there is no security process. We recently audited an AI chatbot that responds like a virtual assistant. They’re a brilliant and smart team with some good developers and they’ve signed up a few banks and need to scale up. But they had to scale up their security, support and engineering team all at the same time. They also didn’t have a proper dev-ops process and they had to rethink what they were doing which took a long time to deliver to customers. FinTechs should be thinking on the backend earlier.

The other challenge is compliance when they need to integrate with Financial Services businesses. Most FinTech businesses that need to work with banks are given a huge checklist of security. But they don’t necessarily have the capability to do this internally, so we are brought in. It takes a fairly long time to get to this level of security and the banks are asking for quite a lot, most of which is around the security of the data. Most FinTechs find this quite a challenging and drawn out process to get to the right level of security compliance.

MP: How do clients assess whether they need Entersoft’s help?

MG: It’s difficult for businesses to assess whether they need our help… In my perspective they need it all the time right from the start. The trend we’re seeing is when they have small breaches or they have had someone hack them, we get brought in. But the best time to think about security is at the beginning when you’re building the application. Being proactive will reduce the cost massively and create great process around dev-ops and security. If you’ve developed the product you can still implement some great dev-ops but it’s slightly more difficult.

MP: What are some of the biggest challenges in growing a cyber security business?

MG: The biggest challenge has always been talent and the talent that fits in our culture. We are people who have very organised but very unbalanced lifestyles. We’re a team of hackers! It’s quite demanding when we have clients on. There’s a lot of pressure on us if we don’t do our job right as this has a big impact on businesses and could result in real loss. We don’t want to grow for the sake of it and effect this culture, but we also have to hire and grow. That being said, no hacker has left us in the last 2 years. You get a lot of exposure to lots of different businesses to hack and it’s a very diverse role.

There’s also a big education piece which we’ve been trying to do, moving businesses from thinking that security is a cost or after-thought or luxury. Alongside this is making sure that once we’ve done the education, they understand the long-term view of security that is across the entire business, versus just one advocate that could leave.

MP: How do you hire for a cyber security business? What’s the biggest thing you look for when hiring?

MG: So firstly, they need to be good hackers, but typically this is quite hard to find. Most applications we get are not from start-ups, they’re from people who worked in enterprise. These people are normally good in scanning and auditing etc, but they don’t fit our culture. If you maybe interview 100 you will find one person who fits in.

One thing we do is hiring young talent with a lot of curiosity who thinks everything is insecure. We call them noobs! But you need to have the core characteristics and wanting to learn but don’t need to have all the skills. We then shape this talent over the next 2 or 3 years to make them into really good hackers. We’ve been training hackers for years and have become really good at it. We train at least 20 people in a month and then take in about 2 or 3 people. The rest always have a core understanding of the code and all of these. Unfortunately, this is a really time-intensive way to hire and people take a long time to grow, so it’s difficult to balance between training and putting hackers on active projects.

Our interview process is quite intense too. We typically have a phone interview to assess the technical expertise, then set people a 4 to12 hour project. This will be something like, giving them an application of our business or one of our team members, and making them hack us. Some people are successful, and they are hired immediately. This helps us to hire talent that think differently to people who are already in the business. It takes time to hack a business that has already been secured by hackers.

MP: How do you find operating your business out of Brisbane and India? Are you able to attract the right talent?

MG: Currently we have a team of 3 in Brisbane plus our MD, but our biggest team sits in India with me and 11 hackers. We also have a sales office in Singapore. We have tried setting up a training division in Australia, the communication skills are great, but the technical skills are not as strong in comparison to some of the people we have in India, but their comms skills aren’t as good. It’s always a balancing act. Creating a global culture is a big challenge. We have been slow in the way we grow our team, but we have grown aggressively with the way we grow our customers and so use our time more effectively.

As a final word – the community has to know that security is an investment, you can’t look at it is a cost later on cause it will cost you more, but if you invest in it early you will save heaps of money.

If you’d like to get in touch to learn more about Entersoft or think you’re the next Mr Robot and would like to join their team, get in touch with us at:

sydney@mitchellake.com

 

Can you turn ideas into Augmented Realities?

mitchellake on August 11, 2017

In a world where technology is evolving faster than we ever thought possible, augmented reality is one of the most exciting new technologies people can’t take their eyes off. It’s predicted to generate more than $120 billion in revenue by the year 2020 and we’re only at the start of that journey.

Leading innovators like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Sony, have set the precedent for the future of AR through investments and strategic moves. Imagine a world where our environment comes to life through digital layers that give relevant, contextual information in real time; digital layers that enhance our real world. AR is precisely as it is defined: an augmented, or some might argue, improved, reality that we live in.

Plattar is a cloud-based platform that comprises a template driven app builder and easy to use drag-and-drop content management system for managing AR experiences, and can deploy content to any device. Plattar operates on a SaaS subscription model, and for larger projects provides bespoke content solutions and support. This combined with a custom consulting service makes for a powerful solution to enterprise and SMB clients. Plattar are currently working with some of the leading brands in the world.

After successfully completing their seed round and securing A$1.1million last year, Plattar is looking for an experienced COO to help take them through their next growth phase.

As the COO, you’ll be responsible for everything from developing a strategy that complements the vision set by the CEO to full responsibility of the P&L and Growth metrics. You’ll be managing a team and be hands on with driving the product roadmap. This is a chance to get in on the ground floor with one of the most exciting new technologies around and help build it into a global leader in the augmented reality market.

To be successful in this role you’ll need a strong, proven background in either product, sales/marketing, operations, consulting or relevant start-up experience and used to pitching and raising capital for a business.

If you want to find out more, please apply here.

FinTech Interviews: Timelio

mitchellake on August 10, 2017

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Charlotte Petris Founder and CEO of Timelio – the extremely successful invoice and supply chain finance marketplace. I was delighted to learn the reason that Charlotte was (very apologetically) late for our interview was that she was on a call with an SME customer who was talking her through their challenges. As we will come to see, this transparency and genuine care for customer is what really sets Timelio apart.

But don’t take that from me – let’s hear what Charlotte has to say:

Matthew Parker: There have been a few invoice financing platforms emerge globally over the past 5 years, why is this happening now? What has created the right circumstance for this to occur?

Charlotte Petris: Ultimately, it’s a reflection of the opportunity that has emerged following the GFC and the increased regulation imposed upon banks, making it more difficult for them to lend to SME businesses. Invoice financing is also a very smart product that doesn’t need to be secured against real estate. Invoice finance isn’t a new concept, it’s been around for many years in different forms, but the technology is now at a place that makes it easier for businesses to use and offers much more flexibility.

MP: What inspiration do you get from businesses such as Market Invoice when you see their success in the UK?

CP: What they have shown is that this is a very scalable product. However, there are some key differences between the UK and Australia in this market, such as the regulatory and competitive environment.

The marketplace (or peer-to-peer) business model means that we can bring a new funding distribution model to the market. Globally, there are many investors who have excess capital that are seeking access to a new asset class offering diversified returns. This has enabled us to grow quickly, without relying on traditional funding sources. We have funded over $100 million to date and in our first 3 months we funded $1 million. This shows that Australia is really ready for a product like this, but for us this is just the beginning!

MP: You’ve written about building a high-performance culture, how have you been able to do that at Timelio and what do you see as attributes of high performers?

CP: It’s about an alignment of values, passion and purpose. We hire people who are aligned to our values and who see the long-term potential of the product. Ultimately, everyone in our business has to understand the customer’s needs and be able to empathise and listen to our customers. If they can do that, they’ll get behind our purpose and enjoy solving their problems!

Also, with a business at this stage that’s growing so fast, you must be the type of person who thrives on ambiguity and change. If you can’t adapt and grow your experience alongside the rapid evolution of business, then your skills may become redundant quite quickly.

MP: In an article recently, you spoke about values, what are Timelio’s values and why is it important to set values for a business early on?

CP: We have three core values – respect, nurture and connect. There is a strong connection between values and brand. Nurture for example, is what our ethos is all about, helping businesses grow. This value also spreads across the entire company, so that we all support and encourage each other to develop. If you’re the leader of the company, you have to behave in a way that reflects those values and people will follow in the same way. Respect and offering flexibility is not just how we work internally but also how we treat our customers.

MP: This year Timelio won the Diversity in FinTech award, why do you think you won this award, and why is diversity important to the growth of a business?

CP: It’s not just about ticking boxes, it’s a genuine desire to hear diversity of thought from different perspectives and respect other people’s views. We think differently as a company because in our industry (traditional invoice financing) there is a very clear lack of diversity. It’s a key differentiator for us.

MP: What’s on the cards for Timelio in the next 6-12 months? What are the key drivers for growth in your business and how will you be looking to achieve this?

CP: Our recent focus has been on building foundations for scale. We’re exploring various expansion opportunities that align with our growth strategy. Building out the team is of course really important and we’re always looking for awesome people to join us. We’re in a great position now for growth.

MP: You’ve mentioned you’re going to be hiring quite extensively over the next 6-12 months, what are some of the biggest challenges for you when it comes to growing your team? Where are some of the most difficult areas for you to hire in?

CP: We’re currently hiring across marketing, relationship management, and operations. My focus in hiring is finding people who have real grit and determination to succeed in a fast-changing environment and who can think differently. As the business changes, grows and develops, it’s also important to have a relevant board or advisory board and we’re also looking at bringing in new people here who understand the transition we’re going through.

If you’d like to learn more about Timelio, check out their website here.

If you’d like to have a chat with us about transitioning into the FinTech industry or perhaps even having a chat with Timelio, please feel free to email us on:

sydney@mitchellake.com

MitchelLake Group Welcomes a New Laker : Sophie Cohen

mitchellake on July 30, 2017

MitchelLake are delighted to welcome Sophie Cohen to our ever expanding family. Sophie is based in the Sydney office as Head of Delivery and Search for the LakeRepublic brand.

Sophie has over 14 years experience as an Executive Recruiter working across various industries such as Marketing & Advertising, Pharmaceutical, Finance, FMCG and Industrial. She is specialised in Executive Search, mapping, market intelligence, talent pipeline and succession planning. She has worked in France, London and now Sydney.

Sophie is passionate about her job, enjoys the challenge that research represents and loves working on a global scale as it allows her to travel virtually. She remembers working simultaneously on 4 completely different searches i.e. a Farmer for a Biofuel company in Texas, a General Manager for a Software company in France, a Project Manager for an FMCG company in Nigeria, and a Managing Director for a Marketing company in Russia.

When she is not at MitchelLake, Sophie develops her cooking skills and eventually tries to learn Chinese. This is becoming alot more complicated than she first thought.

Connect with Sophie below:
Email: sophiec@lakerepublic.com
LinkedIn: Sophie Cohen
Phone: +61 424 741 324

Author

Jamie Finnegan is the Mitchellake Group’s Marketing and Communications specialist. He plays a key role in driving the group’s social media presence, as well as company events.

Previously, Jamie held a marketing and business development role for a niche advertising agency in the United Kingdom.

He is also the company’s social and cultural ambassador and ensures MLG is involved with ongoing charity work.